The virus-mediated disease Rift Valley fever (RVF) was discovered during an outbreak in Kenya in the 1930s. Since then it has spread to most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the last decades several outbreaks have caused economic and health issues in Africa, Yemen and Saudi-Arabia. The disease mainly affects domestic livestock, causing abortions, but is also a zoonosis. To be able to control the spread of the disease it is important with surveillance for better knowledge about the distribution and virus circulation even in inter-epidemic/epizootic periods. The human population is growing, and people and their livestock constantly move closer to areas with wild animals which act as reservoirs for different viruses. Also, humans and their animals often get within reach for arthropod vectors, hosting or carrying viruses.

In Sweden, there has been a continuous increase in the volume of housing construction for dairy cattle. Since 2004, the number of new, rebuilt and extended dairy cow houses undergoing preliminary inspection by the authorities has grown. The livestock farms have mostly focused on cow units instead of calf and heifer sheds; which has led to a need for information in this area. The purpose of the study was to improve advisors? knowledge about bovine building construction and function; to enable them to provide more qualified advice to conventional and organic milk producers who sustain larger herds.

Live-weight at different ages for Swedish Holsteins (SLB) and for the Swedish Red and White Breed (SRB), and the correlation to heart girth and height at withers. The aim of this investigation was to study the live-weight changes and mature weight for the Swedish Red and White Breed (SRB) and for Swedish Holsteins (SLB), and to estimate the correlations between body weight and body measurements such as heart girth and height at withers, respectively. The material used was from one of the experimental dairy herds (Jälla) of the Swedish University of Agricultural Science. It included recordings on 293 dairy cows with information from 7142 weight occasions and recordings on 275 dairy cows with information of 557 heart girth measurements and 560 measurements of height at withers. The registrations were done during 1993-2002. There was a large variation in live weight between cows in different ages and lactation stages.

In Kenya the Maasai pastoralists have based their livelihoods on dairy production and the production goal is to maintain a sufficient milk supply throughout the year. The pastoral dairy production has two vital characteristics; breeding and milking. Traditionally, breeding is the men?s responsibility, while milking is the duty of women. Depending on this partition of chores between men and women, they also have different management routines, ambitions and strategies regarding the milk production.

Mastit är en sjukdom som leder till stora problem i svenska mjölkkobesättningar. De flesta mastiter är subkliniska inflammationer som ofta inte upptäcks på grund av avsaknaden av synliga sjukdomssymtom, men där SCC är förhöjt och mjölkkvaliteten försämrad precis som vid klinisk mastit. Detta leder till att mjölk med förändrad sammansättning och kvalitet levereras till mejerierna som därmed har sämre förutsättningar att framställa mejeriprodukter av hög kvalitet. Även lantbrukaren drabbas ekonomiskt, dels på grund av att ett förhöjt celltal inte ger maximalt betalt för mjölken och dels på grund av en minskad mjölkmängd då all mjölk från kor med konstaterad subklinisk mastit ofta kasseras. Vid mjölkning i automatiska mjölkningssystem finns möjlighet att separera mjölken på fjärdedelsnivå redan vid mjölkning, detta sker dock inte idag.

The trend in milk production is similar in Sweden and across the world; the farms are getting fewer but increasingly bigger. The costs for hiring workers are increasing, which results in more cows per animal keeper. Sensors can then be a great tool for keeping track of animals which need special attention. With a reported decreasing fertility, sensors that can detect oestrus even at low levels can be especially helpful in bigger herds to pinpoint the cows that may be in oestrus. The number of farms with dairy cows that install AMS, Automatic Milking Systems, are increasing, and that also increases the need for sensors to control milk quality and composition when there is no visual control of the milk by a milker before milking starts.For the sensor data to be useful you have to have software designed to analyze and interpret the data to get relevant information that the farmer can use.

Horse owner?s knowledge about horse feeding and nutrition is directly linked to the horse?s health and welfare. According to several studies, both Swedish and foreign, horse owners generally have inadequate knowledge about horse feeding. The housing systems and feeding routines of today differs in many ways from what horses have adapted to through evolution. Wild horses live in harem herds and roam on large open fields, spending about 60 % of the day grazing, mainly grass and herbs.

In June 2013 a debate concerning the consumers? right to a label of origin on food packages was held in the Swedish parliament (www, Riksdagen, 2014). The debate was sparked by some food scandals where labelling was falsely used, claiming something that was not true ? the horse-meat scandal, frozen strawberries infected by Hepatitis A, pork sold as beef, etc. These cases were not only wrong in terms of food safety, but also fraudulent and threating consumers? right to fair origin labelling.

Developments in milk production are heading towards fewer but larger herds where the milking process is often fully automated. Automatic milking systems were launched in the 1990?s and in the year 2010 the Automatic Milking Rotary (AMR) was introduced. As a rule there are no supervision personnel present during the milking event in systems with automatic milking. This means that there is a risk that cows can be incompletely milked in one or more udder quarters, for example if the robots fail in attaching the milking cups or if the cow kicks off the milking unit.

Nyinvesteringar i nötköttsproduktion leder i allmänhet till stora kostnader. Genom att ersätta traditionella byggnader med enklare typer av väderskydd och låta djuren vistas ute vintertid skulle kostnaden kunna minskas. Upptrampad mark och koncentration av gödsel och urin kring utfodringsplatsen, väderskydd och vatten kan dock bli ett problem då köttdjur hålls ute vintertid. Ett flerårigt projekt Animal-Driven Sustainable Beef Production, som finansierades av Mistra, Stiftelsen för miljöstrategisk forskning, genomfördes för att utveckla en ny typ av utedriftsystem. Systemet är mobilt och innebär att djuren vintertid vistas på åkermark som ingår i en växtföljd och att de regelbundet får foder på nya ytor.

There is currently an ongoing discussion in Sweden about the need for weather shelter for farm animals being kept outdoors during the winter season. Currently, the national animal welfare legislation requires weather shelter providing the animals? with access to a dry and clean place to rest, but under certain conditions exemptions can be granted. The Swedish Board of Agriculture has put forward a hypothesis that there is a difference between judicial decisions in animal welfare cases dealing with weather shelters, as to whether the animal has shown to be suffering or not. The aim of the study was to highlight any weaknesses or difficulties when assessing animal welfare issues associated to the absence of or design of weather shelters.

ABSTRACT There is present a lot of focus on animal welfare issues during transport and the related loading and unloading of animals. This thesis is a field study investigating the present situation of beef and dairy farms in Sweden. The predominant reasons stressing cattle when transported to abattoirs are when they are loaded and unloaded on the trucks. The aim of this thesis is to improve the handling and the loading facilities to facilitate the handling and reduce the stress for the animals as well as the personnel. The field study was done by travelling together with the transports from the farm to the abattoir in Uppsala. Three trucks where used and about 60 farms were visited January to March 2003.